The tea harvest in China takes place generally in spring, the first gathering of the leaves occurring in April, the fourth and the last in June. The latter is compressed into bricks, is of very inferior quality, and bought only by the poorer people. The great tea-market is Hankow on the Yang-tsze. All the great Russian houses have representatives who arrive here annually to purchase, and expedite the tea either by sea, viâ Odessa, or overland by Kiakhta. We must not, however, imagine that caravan tea, which the Russians consider to be the finest, is all carried overland. Far from it, but then the purchasers are not supposed to know this, as there exists a prejudice to the effect that tea which travels by water is thereby deteriorated, which is nonsense, since all tea must perform a journey by water of greater or less length. Even that which is destined for Kiakhta is sent by boat to Tien-tsin, whence it has to ascend the Pei-ho on junks, and it is only packed on the camels’ backs at Kalgan, at the foot of the Great Wall. Thence it has to perform a journey of not less than 900 miles across the desert before it reaches Urga, the sacred town of Mongolia, which is situated at a distance of 160 miles south of Kiakhta. Transport can only take place in the month of October, when the roads begin to get hardened by the first frosts, and the camels have returned from the pasture lands where they pass the greater part of the summer. These camels are hired from the Mongolians, and there is great competition among the merchants to secure them, the Russians endeavouring to obtain the greater number of beasts before anybody else so as to secure the first crop of tea. A certain quantity of tea is also brought to Kiakhta on little Mongolian carts, which invariably return home carrying with them three pieces of wood, an article which is almost valueless in Siberia, but very dear in China, where it is resold at a profit.